Deborah Samuel’s murder: 300 women groups protest, call for prosecution of culprits
About 300 women groups have called for the prosecution of all those involved in the murder of Deborah Samuel within the premises of Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto State.
The groups, in a statement on their behalf by Dr Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, Executive Director Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC) also said all the officials of the school, who are complicit in the murder must not go unpunished.
The statement regretted that women in Nigeria are being murdered regularly by religious extremists with the silence and inaction of relevant authorities.
The women noted that since the killing of Eunice Olawale in the Federal Capital Territory in 2016 and Bridget Agbaheme in Kano in 2017, nothing has been done to bring their killers to book.
“The murder of young Deborah by stoning, lynching and burning in the premises of the College of Education, Sokoto without any protection from the school authorities is the most egregious yet of this pattern of religious intolerance in Nigeria.
“Our 1999 Constitution is specific in asserting that Nigeria is a secular democracy with no State religion and that the security of lives and property as a primary responsibility of the government.
“The blatant disregard for human life and the continuous killing of women and girls with impunity has normalized the culture of jungle justice in evident failure of the Nigeria-State to secure our people.
“We would like to recall that several other Nigerian women have been killed in similar circumstances. For example, Eunice Olawale in the Federal Capital Territory in 2016 and Bridget Agbaheme in Kano in 2017 were victims of premeditated murdered for what their killers similarly called ‘religious blasphemy.’
“More than 4-5 years later, nothing has been done by the Federal and state governments concerned to give justice to these two innocent women killed by their fellow citizens for reasons of differences in religious beliefs.
“We therefore call on the Sokoto Governor Aminu Tambuwal to take immediate steps beyond condemning this barbaric act and collaborate with the Nigeria Police and other relevant Federal law enforcement and judicial establishments to commence prosecutorial action against all the identified murderers and complicit school officials of Shehu Shagari College of Education who collaborated to execute and burn Miss Samuel. positive action to forestall future occurrences.
“We also call on the Attorney General and Minister of Justice of the Federation to take a public interest in this matter alongside the stalled cases of prosecution of the killers of Mrs Olawale and Agbaheme respectively,” the women said.
The groups also called for “a comprehensive Justice Sector and System Reform to strengthen law and enforcement especially as it concerns the rights of women, nothing that “the current sector and system mostly exonerates men for crimes against women and girls and this must stop.”
They advocated for “declaration of a State of Emergency on the killings of women and girls”, even as they said that States yet to implement the VAP Act 2015 should do so immediately to safeguard the lives of women.
“Nigerian Women and girls must not continue to be endangered species thereby threatening the bright future of our country.
We call on religious leaders in Sokoto and beyond to speak out against this dastardly act. Religious bodies and leaders have a moral responsibility to foster and promote peace, religious freedoms and eschew intolerance among the adherents of their faiths. Nigerians want to see religious leaders play a unifying role and not champion divisions among the faiths,” the groups added.
